such a one from the legal consequences which would necessarily
follow in any other civilised State."

Mr. Bovill has an instructive chapter on the "Compound system," and the
condition of native compounds. This is a matter which it is to be hoped
will be taken seriously to heart by the Chartered Company, and any other
company or group of employers throughout African mining districts." The
Compound system of huddling hundreds of natives together in tin shanties
is the very opposite to the free life to which they are accustomed. If
South African mining is to become a settled industry, we must have the
conditions of the labour market settled, and also the conditions of
living. We cannot expect natives to give up their free open-air style of
living, and their home life. They love their homes, and suffer from
homesickness as much as, or probably more than most white people. The
reason so many leave their work after six months is that they are
constantly longing to see their wives and children. Many times have they
said to me, 'It would be all right if only we could have our wives and
families with us.'"

"The result of this compound life is the worst possible morally."....

"We must treat the native, not as a machine to work when required under
any conditions, but as a raw son of nature, very often without any moral
force to control him and to raise him much above the lower animal world
in his passions, except that which native custom has given him."

The writer suggests that "native reserves or locations should be
established on the separate mines, or groups of mines, where the natives
can have their huts built, and live more or less under the same
conditions as they do in their native kraals. If a native found that he
could live under similar conditions to those he has been accustomed to,
he will soon be anxious to save enough money to bring his wife and
children there, and remain in the labour district for a much longer
period than at present is the case.

"It would be a distinct gain to the mining industry as well as to the
native."

Mr. Bovill goes into much detail on the subject of the "Pass Laws." I
should much desire to reproduce his chapter on that subject, if it were
not too long. That system must be wholly abolished, he says: "it is at
present worse than any conditions under which slavery exists. It is a
criminal-making law. Brand a slave, and you have put him to a certain
amount of physical pain for once, but penalties under the Pass Law
system mean lashes innumerable at the direction of any Boer Field Cornet
or Landdrost. It is a most barbarous system, as brutal as it is
criminal-making, alone worthy of a Boer with an exaggerated fear of and
cowardly brutality towards a race he has been taught to despise."

Treating of the prohibition imposed on the Natives as to the possession
in any way or by any means of a piece of land, he writes: "Many natives
are now earning and saving large sums of money, year by year, at the
various labour centres. They return home with every intention of
following a peaceful life; why should they not be encouraged to put
their money into land, and follow their 'peaceful pursuits' as well as
any Boer farmer? They are capable of doing it. Besides, if they held
fixed property in the State, it would be to their advantage to maintain
law and order, when they had everything they possessed at stake. With no
interest in the land, the tendency must always be to a nomadic life.
They are as thoroughly well capable of becoming true, peaceful, and
loyal citizens of the State as are any other race of people. Their
instincts and training are all towards law and order. Their lives have
been disciplined under native rule, and now that the white man is
breaking up that rule, what is he going to give as a substitute? Anarchy
and lawlessness, or good government which tends to peace and prosperity?